


Seeing Red

by mmmdraco



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandi goes to the doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Daria. I mean no harm. I am merely engaging in shenanigans.

"I'm, uh, Sandi Griffin. I'm here for an appointment." Sandi was directed to sign in. She scribbled her name and her appointment time and took a seat in a corner of the waiting room. Her fingers clutched tightly at her purse and she kept her eyes on her perfectly manicured nails. She took long deep breaths and tried not to think about why she was here. But after a few minutes, a magazine caught her eye. It was some parenting magazine with a beautiful woman on the front playing with a little boy while obviously pregnant. The smiles on their faces reminded her of the smiling she was able to do until last week. 

Last week, her chest was suddenly really sensitive to the point where she'd taken to wearing sports bras to school and taking them off when she got home, even having to cancel dates because they were so tender. She had read up on it and was pretty certain that she had some kind of cancer. So she'd called her doctor, made the appointment, and now she was sitting here and willing herself not to cry in front of these people. She'd had to skip out on last period, but it was Language Arts. She already *knew* the language, so she didn't care.

"Sandi Griffin?"

Jerking her head up, Sandi stood. "I'm here." She walked toward the short, frumpy lady holding a chart in her hand and frowned at the fact that her purple scrub top and blue scrub pants clashed horribly.

"Okay, Sandi, if you'll just have a seat over here," the nurse said as she pointed to a chair in a small office off of the main hallway. "I'm just going to take a few measurements."

"Um, okay." Sandi set her purse down and followed along as the nurse directed her through having her blood pressure taken, having her height and weight recorded, and even getting her temperature taken. She talked briefly about her symptoms and held her face as still as she could so her bottom lip wouldn't tremble.

"Sandi, if you would just go into the bathroom here and take this little cup... We need a urine sample." 

Rolling her eyes a little, Sandi held out her hand for it. "And can I get, like, a glove, too? There are some things girls just shouldn't have to touch."

"Of course, dear." The nurse pulled out a purple latex glove and Sandi took it and stode purposefully to the bathroom. It took her a few minutes before she returned and set the sample on the table by the nurse, blushing slightly. "I'm just going to take this to the lab, okay?"

"Um, okay." Sandi ignored the woman in favor of examining various pamphlets in a holder near her. They were all about different birth control medications. She was on that new one that was supposed to make it where you only had 4 periods a year. That was nice, but it did make her feel kind of strange sometimes. Just last month, she had the cramping for a whole week, but there wasn't any bleeding until the last few days, but all medications seemed to have some strange side effects.

The nurse came back and Sandi was even more annoyed by the blue and purple scrub color combination, but not quite enough to say anything. "Sandi, I'm going to bring you to an exam room over here. Dr. Peters will be in to see you in a few minutes." She led Sandi to the room and took out a paper gown and a large green sheet. "Take off your clothes and put on the gown, and then drape the sheet over your hips. He'll knock before he comes in." Sandi nodded, but didn't speak.

It was the work of a moment to take off her clothes and carefully fold them and sit them on a chair in the room with her purse next to it. Another moment and she was seated on the exam table with the sheet draped around her. She pulled it up to cover her arms and shivered. Someone had put this table right under a vent and Sandi wasn't happy about it, but she couldn't bring herself to complain right now. She couldn't even count the amount of time it took for Dr. Peters to knock on the door, but she turned her head to glance at the door just before he knocked. "Sandi?"

"Um, hello, Dr. Peters."

"How have you been since the last time I saw you?" He opened her chart and made a note she couldn't read.

"Um, not so good."

"Have you been nauseous?"

"Um, no."

"Had some cramping?"

"Uh, yes."

"Some soreness of your breasts?"

"Yes. It's cancer, isn't it? Just tell me."

"Sandi, it's not cancer. You're pregnant."

"What?!" Sandi took a deep breath. "No. I can't be pregnant."

"So you haven't had sex?"

"Not in the last month, I haven't. There was once a few weeks before that, but I had a period. I'm on birth control for this very *reason*." Sandi twisted the sheet in her fists and shook her head. No. This wasn't possible. She had cancer. She was dying.

"Was that period lighter than you're used to experiencing? And I see here you're on the Seasonique pill. It's a great pill, but no birth control method is perfect, Sandi, and one of the downfalls of this one is that it's controlling your menstrual cycle and forcing actions that your body wouldn't normally take when you're pregnant. It stops you from bleeding normally, and that's unfortunately also a sign of pregnancy. We do recommend that you stop taking your birth control pills for the time being."

"No."

"No?" Dr. Peters closed her file and looked at her.

"This isn't possible. Isn't there, like, some kind of false positive? *I* would not get pregnant. It's cancer. I read up on it."

Dr. Peters opened her file again. "We ran the results twice just to make sure, Sandi. I know you're probably scared. Seventeen year olds usually aren't ready for the emotional trauma that results from an unexpected pregnancy. I'd like to talk about some options with you, but first I'm going to call my nurse back in here to assist in your examination."

"I'm going to go."

"What?"

Staci pushed aside the sheet and stood up. "Please leave so I can get dressed."

"This isn't a good idea, Sandi."

"I don't *care*!" Tears welled up in her eyes finally. "I'm not going to be that girl they remember as the one who got pregnant in high school!"

Dr. Peters put a hand on her shoulder. "That's one of the options we can discuss, too, Sandi."

Sandi contemplated it for a moment, but shook her head. "Leave."

Nodding, Dr. Peters closed her file. "Okay. But I'm here when you want to come back in. I can also give you the names and numbers of a few other places that can help you. And if you're worried about telling your parents, I think it might help to talk to a friend first and feel out their reaction." He opened the door. "If you decide that you want to keep the baby, I recommend starting on a prenatal vitamin. They're available over the counter."

"Okay." Sandi wrapped her arms around herself for a few moments after the door closed behind him. She shrugged off the paper gown and changed back into her clothes. She sat down in the chair and felt a sob rise in her throat. Her breath hitched and she wiped carefully at her eyes as they began to water. The events of 6 weeks ago were suddenly clear in front of her.

She'd gone to a party that the rest of the Fashion Club had also been invited to. Everything had been great until Quinn showed up even more fashionably late than she had. Then, every boy that had been flirting with Sandi suddenly left to pursue Quinn. She tried to attract a few of the unattached boys at the party, but they were all entranced with unattached cheerleaders. She was going to head home, but remembered that Stacy had driven her and Tiffany. So, now she was stuck. She looked over at Quinn again and felt rage boil up within her. Sandi really wanted to like Quinn. She was popular, pretty, and not nearly as catty as some of the other girls she knew, but it hurt when Quinn constantly upstaged her. It hurt when boys were telling her she was pretty and then immediately rushed to Quinn when she arrived. And worst of all was the fact that Quinn *recognized* that it hurt Sandi and occasionally sent a boy back to flirt with her. It hurt like a hole in her heart. Before Quinn had arrived, she'd had her pick of the boys in school. She was the girl everyone wanted to be. And now? She was the president of the Fashion Club. But she felt like a figurehead and it ate away at her. 

So six weeks ago, instead of staying to try to have fun, she wandered over to where Stacy and Tiffany were talking. "I'm going to get a ride and leave now," she said smiling. "Something's come up and I'm, like, needed at home."

"Oh, I can take you, Sandi!" Stacy said manically. "Tiffany and I are just over here discussing mannequins and how some outfits are so bad they don't even look good on display, but then some look better because those mannequins just don't have any curves, and that's hard to live up to sometimes!"

Sandi curbed the urge to say, 'And that's exactly why I want a ride with someone else' and instead thanked Stacy for the offer and headed to the less popular side of the party full of gate crashers, joke invitees, and the guys who wore too much cologne. She strode up to one of the people and tapped him on the shoulder. "Ex-*cuse* me, um, Charles?"

Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer III turned to her and smiled. "Yes, my delightfully beautiful goddess?"

Sandi blushed, but frowned at him. She'd been around him enough to know that he said that kind of thing to every girl. "I'm in need of a ride home and wondered if you would provide it."

"Ooo... of course, my darling. Let me just get my coat." He left her for a moment and returned a moment later. "Shall we?" He held out his arm, but she just stared at him. "Of course."

When they got out to his car, Sandi frowned. "A convertible with the top down? Could you, like, put it up?"

Charles grimaced. "It's actually kind of stuck right now. Is it about your hair?"

Sandi pulled a scrunchie from her pocket. "*That* I'm always prepared for. But, it's already a little cold out here."

Watching as Sandi pulled her hair back into a ponytail, Charles suddenly handed over his jacket. "Here. I know it doesn't go with your outfit, but it'll keep you warm."

"Um, thanks." Sandi glanced at it briefly, but put it on. It was a little big on her, but that was still in style some places. She slid into the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt and stared out at the large house full of happy teenagers.

"Quinn again, huh?"

"What?" Sandi looked over at Charles as he started the car. "No. I've got homework I need to do. *Some* people have no plans for the *fu*-ture, but I do."

"Oh?" Charles backed away from the house and pulled forward carefully to avoid the other cars in the driveway and on the grass. "Tell me all about them, you saucy minx."

Sandi stared at him for a moment, but decided to trust him with the information. "I'm going to be a model first, and then I'm going to move on to, like, working at a fashion magazine. You need to do at least some of your homework for that."

"You'll be good at it." Charles grinned at her. "There's no one who knows fashion like you do, Sandi."

"That's not what *most* people think. *They* think that Quinn is better."

Charles barked out a laugh. "With that thing she always wears?"

Sandi's heart swelled. "I *know*! She says she doesn't, but I think she's just, like, in denial." She turned her head to look at the scenery and sighed. The stars looked wonderful tonight. A moment later, the car pulled off into a little clearing. "Hmm? Why are we, like, stopping?"

"You looked like you wanted to watch the stars," Charles said. "Here we are, just before the dawn of the new millenium, and we've started taking things like the stars for granted. I've got a telescope at home, and I love watching things, I mean stars, through it. But, everyone else acts like nothing beyond the walls of the room they're in matter."

"Yeah." Sandi leaned her seat back and stared at the night sky, tracing the few constellations she knew with her eyes and finding correlations between some of the others to hazard a guess as to what they were supposed to be. Charles was normally such a pervert, but tonight he was just what she seemed to need. She turned to Charles suddenly. "Would you kiss me?"

"What? I mean, of course, my lady. But why?" Charles stared at her with a goofy grin.

"Because feeling alone, like, sucks."

Sandi broke from her memories and clutched at the paper gown still in her hands. She wiped away the tears that had fallen while she was remembering and threw the gown in the trash can. She was pregnant with Charles' baby. And why? Because of Quinn. Well, not directly, but she could trace it back to how Quinn made her feel. And then Charles had been nice and actually acted like what she said mattered, and she hadn't had that in so long that she craved it. She craved someone *wanting* to take *her* out on a nice date instead of settling for her when Quinn was busy with another boy. 

Breezing past the front desk, Sandi strode out to her car, got in, and buckled up. What the hell was she going to do? If anyone found out about *any* of it, there went the popularity she did have. If her parents found out, she was going to be grounded for the rest of her life. And now there was something growing inside of her *like* a cancer, and she had no idea what to do. Before Quinn, she might have considered talking to Stacy and Tiffany, but that was out now. They were always on Quinn's side. She could maybe talk to a teacher or the guidance counselor, but then Ms. Li might find out and who knew what would happen then?

She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, looking carefully before turning onto the street. The traffic was light that day, but she knew she was upset and that didn't work in her favor when she drove. She let the car take her across town, turning when she felt like it, and running a stop sign that should have been a yield sign. Her life was virtually over. The whole reason that Fashion Club girls didn't have sex with boys they weren't serious about was because getting pregnant from a guy you only had one date with looked really bad. And it was worse for her. Charles hadn't even been her date. He'd just given her a ride home. She was absolutely pathetic.

A few minutes later, Sandi found herself outside the city limits, heading down the road to where she and Charles had watched the stars. She drove to it and parked. She got out of the car and leaned against it, looking up at the sky. She opened her mouth and screamed loudly and turned toward her car, kicking it as hard as she could. She screamed again as pain flowed through her and she collapsed to the ground sobbing. The ground was a little muddy from a light rain the previous night and it soaked into her pants quickly. She couldn't quite catch her breath, it seemed. Bile rose in her throat and she turned her head to the side at the last moment to allow the contents of her stomach to pass by her lips again. She grimaced and wiped her mouth, feeling as disgusting on the outside as she felt on the inside. Her mascara was running, snot was dripping out of her nose, her head was pounding... but none of it seemed to matter as much as the fact that she was carrying the spawn of some red-headed geek conceived in the back seat of a convertible with the top down. 

Sandi fought the spasms of her diaphragm to take a deep breath. She felt dehydrated and hoarse and broken. Her toes still throbbed. She lay muddy and alone on the ground next to her car and her hands came up to gently touch her stomach. She could make a choice here. She could get rid of it and pretend it never happened. But she'd always know. And if anyone ever found out, that was just something else to count against her. She wondered what Quinn would do if she were in this situation. Only, she realized, Quinn wouldn't be in the situation. She wouldn't have felt lonely enough to leave that party in the first place, and even if she had, she probably would have called that cousin of her's for a ride. And if Quinn *had* gotten pregnant somehow, she would have made it into a fashion statement like babies were the world's best accessory, even before a well-outfitted boyfriend.

She wondered how long she could hide this if she decided to keep it. Not long, probably. Her mother noticed if she gained half a pound, and Quinn noticed if she gained an ounce, though she often let Sandi know with the nicest of back-handed compliments. Last time, she'd made a mention that Sandi looked great with that tiny bit of extra weight because it really fleshed out her cheekbones. She'd skipped lunch that day and had a green salad for dinner with a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinagrette. When she ballooned up like some circus animal, what would Quinn say then? Would anyone even talk to her?

There was always a girl or two who got pregnant at Lawndale High. It happened. But they were never the popular girls. Popular girls knew better, or were at least *supposed* to know better. When Brittany had a pregnancy scare last year, the other cheerleaders were supportive, but everyone talked about her behind her back. Sandi wanted people talking about her, but not like that. She was supposed to be an icon, damn it!

Numb from the cold mud soaked through her clothes, Sandi couldn't quite bring herself to get up. When another car pulled into the clearing, Sandi didn't even look until she heard a familiar voice say, "Sandi? Are you okay?"

Wiping her hand across her face again and leaving a smudge of mud in its wake, Sandi shuddered. "Go away, Quinn."

"Skylar called to say he drove past and saw you out here. I came right over." Quinn crouched down and put a hand on Sandi's cleaner arm. 

Sandi pulled her arm away. "I *said* go away."

Quinn stood up and put her hands on her hips. "I will *not* go away, Sandi. I'm your friend! That's why Skylar knew to call me instead of, like, Stacy. She is *no* help in an emergency." Quinn crouched down again. "I've got a towel in my car. Would you like me to get it for you?"

Sandi growled at Quinn and grabbed her hair, pulling her over so she landed in the mud, too. "This is all your fault!" She kicked out at Quinn, but only succeeded in dislodging her shoe.

"What did *I* do?! I came to help you!" Quinn struggled to her knees and grabbed a fistful of muddy grass and pulled it up, throwing the wet clod at Sandi where it struck her in the face.

"You *bitch*! *I* was the most popular girl in the school before you arrived. Everyone looked up to *me*. And now, I'm..." She trailed off and wiped the mud from her face. "I can't stand to be around you."

Quinn stood up. "It's not *my* fault that everyone likes me better, Sandi. Maybe you should try to be a little nicer to people. I'll admit I'm mean to *you* sometimes, but that's just revenge. If something in your life is sucking, maybe you need to look a little closer to home for the reason!" She stormed off back to her car and Sandi felt rage building inside of her. Her fingers clutched in the dirt and she leaned forward to cry more as she heard the tires of Quinn's car spin as she backed up and pulled away with the engine gunned.

Her mind drifted to other topics briefly, but always came back to the fertilized egg inside of her. Would her parents disown her? Would her brothers tease her? Would she be sent off somewhere to have the baby and give it up for adoption? She didn't think this much about the research paper that DeMartino had assigned! Being an unwed teenage mother would never lead to her dreams coming true. She knew that after pregnancy, a woman's body changed. She couldn't be a model then. Sure, Heidi Klum could do it, but she was already a *name* at that point. And if she did decide on an abortion, could she live with herself?

She hauled herself upright carefully, her toes still wincing as she grabbed her lost shoe and put it back on, and got into her car, not caring about the mud. She started the engine and sniffled. It took a while to drive back toward town, but she managed to do it without thinking too much, until she got to a crosswalk that had a person with a distinctive head of curly red hair going by. Without thinking, she pressed her foot on the accelerator and barreled toward Charles, her lips curled and her eyes narrowing. At the last second, she swerved to the side of him and slammed on the brakes. She threw the car into park and got out screaming. "You bastard!"

Charles was curled in a ball on the pavement, hyperventilating. "What did I do? I was just walking!"

She collapsed on the street. "I'm pregnant."

"Oh." Charles got to his knees and crawled toward her. "I... I guess it's mine, then?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

The street was silent for a long while after, with the few cars that did come by going slowly past in the one lane they left open and taking little notice of the two teenagers whose lives had just been thrown into turmoil.


End file.
